


The Musings of a Roaming Inquisitor

by Aiyestel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, F/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 9,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aiyestel/pseuds/Aiyestel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evie Trevelyan, formerly of the Circle at Ostwick, now leads the inquisition. These are random snippets and musings as she adjusts to life outside the circle and to leading a force such as the inquisition. Not in order. Not always canon-compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things Happen

It just…happens.

They’ve been here in this desert for what feels like months, though in all reality it’s only been a week and a day. The dunes are always different, yet somehow always the same; each one rolls away just like the last. Evie can’t get comfortable here. The days bring sweltering heat and the nights leave her shivering beneath her blankets. It makes her miss a place she’d never loved. 

It’s late afternoon when they manage to flush out a group of Venatori, and the fight is short. With a solid wall of muscle like Bull complimented by Varric’s sharp eye and Cole’s dancing blades the cultists never stood a chance. The cult’s presence here makes her uneasy. It gets under her skin like the grains of sand get into…well…everything. 

And it’s that unease that does it.

It comes over the crest of the dune, just like the Venatori had and Evie wields her staff in an instant, without thinking, without hesitating, every nerve ending screaming that it was another enemy there to attack them. The bolt of electricity hits it and the fox falls with a pitiful little squeak and lies still on the sand, dead in an instant.

"Damn boss, quick as lightning," Bull says and then laughs at a pun not intended. He claps her on the shoulder before stooping to dig out a couple silver from one of the Venatori’s pockets.

"Fear. Like a shadow looming, even on the sunniest of days. A loss of control. A moment of weakness. Lying still, still as death. What it might have been." Cole’s voice forms words she doesn’t want to hear. She squeezes her eyes shut as if that will drown him out.

"Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?"

Cole’s voice is perplexed and he’s at her elbow, staring at her from beneath the wide brim of his hat.

"No Cole," she says, voice strained. "You did nothing wrong."

"Are you sure? Because you’re—"

"I know, Cole," she interrupts, as gently as she can. "I know. Why don’t we—-let’s just set up camp. Since we’re here."

It’s only after camp is set and ravens sent to waiting inquisition soldiers that she makes her way back across the rolling dunes to where the little fox lays, as still as ever.

"You were acting on instinct, Evie. You shouldn’t beat yourself up over one dead fox." She hadn’t heard Varric follow her, as preoccupied as she was. He’s the only one who calls her by her first name.

"It’s not the fox," she replies. "It’s that, the instinct. I didn’t think. What if that had been you coming over that rise? Or one of our scouts? What if it had been an innocent person coming to thank us?"

"Way out here? I don’t think you have to worry about that."

"That’s not what I mean."

"I know it’s not." For all his pretend she hears the heaviness in his sigh. She sees the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Look I can’t pretend to know what it’s like. I mean shit, I can’t even dream, right? So I’m probably the worst person to be talking to you about this."

"You don’t have to, Varric," Evie says before kneeling and beginning to dig a hole with her hands. It’s fruitless, they both know it; the sand is too loose. He stoops and catches her hands, first one then the other.

"People make mistakes."

"I’m not ‘people’."

"Now who told you that?"

She looks at him and he tries to tell himself her eyes aren’t shimmering with unshed tears because shit is he bad with crying women.

"Everyone."

He wants to argue with her but he’s known too many mages to pretend it’s not true.

"I know ‘out here’—and I don’t just mean this stupid desert—but outside the circle it’s different. I know that it’s a lot to take. But mistakes happen. They just do. It’s part of living."

He squeezes her fingers gently as he pulls her to her feet. 

"I’m afraid, Varric," she whispers.

"Of what?"

"Of living. I’m afraid I don’t know how."


	2. What Stories Would She Tell?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric muses on their inquisitor and wonders what she hides behind the mask she wears.

Brown hair, eyes the color of sand. They hide a lifetime of stories behind them.

She carries herself stiffly at first; nervous, ever watchful. Her staff is always within reach if it’s not strapped to her back. She smiles infrequently, laughs less and if Varric didn’t know any better—and he wanted to believe he did—he’d say she was afraid of everything and everyone, including herself.

He tries to think of a nickname for her but none seem to fit. None seem to stick. But each time he tries another one he earns the shard of a smile, like those stupid pieces she picks up all over the place. One days he’s going to trade them all in for a real one. Oh, that’ll be the day.

He wonders if she smiled when she was in the circle. Did she laugh? Was there more to her than this? There had to be. He could see it in her eyes. It had never been like this with Hawke. Where Trevelyan was a hidden door, Hawke was an open book. Where the inquisitor held everything close to the vest, Hawke shared it all with abandon. 

One day he’d get the story from her. He would hear it over a mug of ale, or a hand of cards and it’d click into place. It would all make sense. 

But for now he tells the stories and watches to see what makes the corner of her mouth twitch up. What makes her eyes light up for a moment. There’s a spark there and he wonders what she’d say if she let go of her fear, even a little. 

He wonders what stories she’d tell.


	3. A Spectacle

"Keep the blades up!"

Bull’s large hands close around hers, engulf them really. He lifts them up and steps back. 

"Okay, kadan, again."

She sighs and stares at the Qunari across from her. “Can’t we just go kill a dragon instead?” she asks, and if anyone were to question her she’d say that she most certainly, without a doubt, was not whining.

He hesitates only a moment. “Nice try.” 

She wishes she could wipe that grin off his face. She also wishes Krem wasn’t leaning against the fence behind them watching as he had been since Bull had dragged her out here.

She lunges at him again but the only effect it has is for Bull to laugh. Damn it, he doesn’t even step back. “No Kadan, if you’re going to stab you don’t want to hold the knives like that. It limits your range of motion.”

"What’s going on here?"

Evie groans and almost throws the knives down in disgust. “What is this a public sport now?! Come and see your inquisitor flail about in the practice ring.”

There’s a smile Cullen’s holding back. “While I don’t mind watching her flail around—” he blushes slightly and Evie does the same—“is there a point to all of this?”

Bull rounds on the commander. “Have you ever seen our legendary inquisitor fight? You’d think as a mage she’d stay on the fringes, casting from afar, but instead she likes to get in the thick of things. And since she can’t wield her staff when she’s swamped by enemies she needs to know how to defend herself. Daggers seemed the logical choice.”

Cullen stares at her. Obviously this knowledge doesn’t sit well with him. “He’s right,” he finally says. 

Evie had been hoping that Cullen would be her saving grace instead he seemed to have no plans other than to watch as he leans his hip against the fence next to Krem. 

"Maker take you all," she grumbles.

Bull laughs and bumps her hands back up.

"C’mon Kadan, again."


	4. It's the Chest hair

They’ve been in this desert for weeks. It feels like forever. The sulfur clouds are just as thick, the wildlife just as unfriendly, and all Evie wants is some cool, mountain air and a bath. A long one.

The four of them—Cole, Bull, and Varric ever her loyal companions—were in search of a tome written by the ancient Tevinters in an ancient Tevinter ruin. Really she wasn’t even sure why. The man, Federique of Serault, could waste his own time on how to get eaten by high dragons. And yet here she was the one digging through sand and thick layers of dust.

"I thought dwarves had beards," Bull says from somewhere behind her. The three are no help sifting through the piles of books and other crap to find just the tome she was looking for. "Or mustaches…or something."

"I make up for it in other areas," Varric replies, as non-chalantly as you please.

Evie chokes on air at his reply and goes down to one knee as she coughs.

"You okay, boss?" Bull asks as if the answer was nothing he hadn’t been expecting.

She waves a hand at them and tries to nod, eyes watering.

She can almost hear the shit-eating grin on Varric’s face when he speaks next.

"It’s the chest hair."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie collects mounts like some people collect spoons, and she is always eager to show them off to Varric.

"Varric! Varric! Come on, follow me! I have something to show you!"

After all these months he can’t say he’s ever seen the inquisitor this excited. She’d practically skipped out of the war room and caught him by the arm on her way out of the main hall. Her smile was infectious he had to give her that.

"Alright Evie, what do you have? Lay it on me."

She grins at him over her shoulder but doesn’t slow down until they reach the far side of the keep where the inquisition’s mounts are housed in rows of covered stalls. But she doesn’t head for a stall, and despite all the weird things she finds to add to her glowing herd of mounts (I mean a giant nug with horns? Really?) she’s never wanted him to come see any of them like this. This one must be quite special.

They stop in front of a small paddock. “What the f—-“

"Isn’t he marvelous?" Evie asks holding out her hand to the….

"What is it?"

She looks at him as if he’s grown another head. “Why it’s a bog unicorn, of course!”

"Of course," he mutters as the thing shuffles over to press its nose—or what’s left of it—to Evie’s palm. It looks like it’s seen better days, or centuries. Taut skin is stretched over its skeleton and the eyes glow red like embers in a hearth. But it seems to like Evie as it lips at her nose and then blows out a breath in her hair making her laugh.

"Maker’s balls is that a sword through its head?!"


	6. A New Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie loves animals. All animals, except for bugs (and spiders). She talks to them out loud no matter the company she keeps, but it’s never in that fake baby voice. She always appears to have a one-sided conversation with them…much to the amusement, and sometimes confusion, of her companions.

"What  _are_  you?”

It’s pouring rain and this place smells—well it smells like Darktown on a bad day, Varric thinks to himself. Evie is standing with her hands on her hips before a large… thing. No one’s quite sure what it is, but that doesn’t stop their herald. 

The beast is large and gray, it looks incapable of running at any speed worth noting, but it’s teeth… He shudders. It’s mouth is lined with a row of dagger-like teeth. What kind of messed up animal is this?

It cocks its large head and rolls an eye up at Evie who’s standing far too close to it in his opinion. Cassandra has her hand on the hilt of her sword as well. Good to know he isn’t alone in his wariness of the thing.

"You’re like nothing I’ve ever seen before, even in books and I’ve read a lot of those," she tells it and it makes a sound that’s half grunt, half rumble. It sounds like rocks grating, as if that’s a pleasant sound.

"And what do you eat? Do you eat people?" she asks it, and Varric wants to smack his head with the heel of his hand when she takes a step closer. "There can’t be much to eat by way of meat around here, unless those teeth aren’t used for eating meat. What do you think?"

She’s not asking her companions. No, she’s asking the thing. As if it’s going to talk back to her. But he can’t really complain, he thinks, she did just face down an Avaar prince and rescue their people. If she wants to stop and talk to the local fauna that’s fine with him, as long as said fauna doesn’t eat their only hope of closing the breach. They were on their way back to camp when they had stumbled on the things.

It rolls its head and takes a step closer to shove its nose against her hand and she  _laughs_. “Well aren’t you friendly? People might think otherwise by the look of that smile, you know?”

It bumps her hand again, snuffles once and then turns away.

"You’ve left me with more questions than answers but I shall endeavor to find out just what you are. Maybe I’ll come back and see you again."

She turns to them with the remnants of a smile on her face and Varric can’t help the chuckle that escapes him. “Well, it seems like you made a friend so this place wasn’t a total bust,” he says as they start back up the muddy, sodden path.

"And we saved our people, Varric," she says face upturned to the rain.

"Yeah, yeah we did."


	7. Falling Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Would they ever wish upon a falling star? If so, what would they wish?

"I doubt you can hear me. I don’t even know why I’m doing this."

Evie is kneeling on the stone floor before the statue of Andraste in the little chapel the sisters had put together off the garden. It was late. The night was still, few were still awake. The moon was a silent guardian among an army of stars.

The final confrontation with Corypheus was coming, she could feel it. Things were reaching a boiling point and the end was fast approaching whether she was ready for it or not.

"They call me your herald but if I am I can’t hear your voice."

Her family had always been the pious sort and she had been no different…that is until she had been shipped off to the circle in Ostwick. She had felt forsaken. She had felt unloved, both by her family and by the maker she had always revered.

When she had woken up in Haven she had thought it was some sick joke. Her, the herald of Andraste.

She stares at the statue but there is no answer. She didn’t expect one.

"I don’t know why I bother."

The night air is crisp and bites at her skin as she climbs the stairs up to the ramparts. The stars twinkle above her. When she had lived in the circle she had always snuck out once a year on her birthday to watch them the night through. If the templars knew they never bothered her. She has always loved the stars. They spoke to her in a way the Maker never had.

"You are constant and ever present, there even when I can’t see you." She sits on the cold stone and stares up at the sky. "You are as you were a thousand years ago and as you will still be a thousand years from now… It is a comfort."

She sighs. The stars are just as quiet as any god or holy prophet but wasn’t that in their nature. No one ever spoke in their name; no one ever proclaimed a mere mortal to be their herald, to act in their stead.

"There were stories I read as a child. Even in the circle. People wished on stars for their dreams to come true. It always seemed so foolish to me." She had been a cynical young mage, some would argue she was still that way as an adult. "But I think I understand. They were just looking for some hope. They were counting on something that had never disappeared even when they couldn’t see them. It’s a lot more believable than an absent and unloving creator, don’t you think?"

Evie shakes her head. Talking again to someone—something that would never talk back to her.

"I don’t know what’s ahead. What’s going to happen. I’d say I’m not asking for the world but I guess that’s not true. These people, my friends, they’ve worked so hard. Sacrificed so much. Thedas lives in fear and they deserve better. If my life or death…I don’t want to die but if it means success… I’m just wishing for a miracle. One more."


	8. Old Scars

"I was tortured. They tried to break my mind. How can you be the same person after that?"

It’s instantaneous, the desire to take back his words, because she turns to him and he sees only a raw, unbridled pain in her eyes. The pain of understanding, the pain of someone who has been there too. He doesn’t want to know that about her even though he wants to know everything.

"I wish—" she begins, but her voice cracks and he hates that it does. "I wish I could say there was a way, but there’s not. It changes you. It would change anyone strong enough to survive."

He wants to ask what happened to her but he has not earned that privilege. She was the one to walk in on his moment of weakness, she was the one to see his past laid bare on the desk in front of him.

"You know I came from the Ferelden circle but I did not tell you that I was there when there were mages who rebelled, who resorted to blood magic." Some nights the screams of his brothers and sisters still haunt him. The whisper of the desire demon still grips his chest with sharpened claws. It is hard to let go.

"We lost many Templars. I listened to them scream as they were tortured and killed. I heard them plead for death, for release. I don’t know how I survived the torture, their attempts to break me."

Sometimes, in the dark hours of night when he is weak and his muscles burn for want of lyrium, he wishes he hadn’t.

Hazel eyes are searching his when he realizes he’s been silent for too long.

"I’m sorry. I never meant to lay these burdens on you."

"Do not be sorry. Never be sorry."

He wants to tell her to not be so accepting, so forgiving. Do not coddle me, he wants to tell her. But his throat is dry and he can’t. Doesn’t.

"I do not wish to give less to the inquisition than I did to the order." Anger floods his veins and he punches the bookshelf, rattling shelves and causing several tomes to fall. "I should be taking it!"

"Cullen."

Her voice is soft, like her touch on his temples when he is in the throes of one of his headaches. It’s like a spring breeze calling him home, whispering of warm, clear days ahead. He wonders if she even realizes.

"This doesn’t have to be about the inquisition or the chantry. It’s what you want."

She crowds close, not touching but there, filling his vision.

"What do you want?"

"What if I cannot endure it? What if—-"

She touches his cheek with the tips of her fingers and it’s so soft, so hesitant, he almost believes he imagined it.

"Think of all the things you’ve done," she murmurs. "Think of all the victories you have led us to. If you don’t want to take it then I know you can endure this. I know it."

She is conviction. She is strength.

He folds his hand over hers, presses his cheek into her palm.

"Thank you."


	9. Lose Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: Lose Yourself

It happened a long time ago, in the gilded cage that was Ostwick’s circle. Evie couldn’t recall now whether it was all at once, or over the span of days, or months, or years. Like flipping through the pages of an old tome, the words too faded to completely see anymore, she had disappeared right before her eyes without her even realizing it.

It was hard to think about, unpleasant even. She had spent her entire life focused on anything else but who she was, who she might have been. Trevelyan was a noble’s name and she was nothing.  _Magic should serve man, and never rule over him_. It was some sick joke, a laugh for the Maker at her expense.

She hoped it was worth it.

By the time she woke up in Haven a second time she had a new title, a new agenda, a new circle. She was battered, exhausted, disillusioned, but she slipped into her new role just as quickly as she slammed up the facade she had come to accept as herself.

But she was no more impenetrable than Haven was, only her avalanches were the people around her. They chipped away at her defenses with words and deeds and fingers that knew just what buttons to push.

Solas showed her the beauty in magic, in the untamed fade, if one only knew where to look. Varric made her laugh until it hurt beneath the hands pressed to her stomach from the force of it, and between her ribs where her heart thundered. Cassandra broke through her walls like the battering ram she was in battle, but she was gentle, kind, unexpected once she was through. Cole sparked her protectiveness without trying, by just being.

They are avalanches, each of them, and she is caught up in their throes. They have swept her up and sped her off towards some inevitable destruction. She was sure of it.

_"You do not carry this weight alone, though it must feel like it."_

And he was the worst of them all. The ex-templar. A man she should hide from, should fear above all others. But instead he was hope and light. He chased out the shadows, dismantled her mask at the seams. He peeled back the layers of her grand illusion with the utmost care, as if she would break under the strain.

She didn’t break. He made her stronger. They all did.

For so long she had always carried it alone, her weight and whatever else was heaped upon her. It was safer that way. She knew who she was and where she stood. An island unto herself. She didn’t need anyone and they didn’t need her.

Except that wasn’t true anymore.

Just like the faded ink scrawled across the page of a book long shelved they had shown up beside her, catching her unawares. They helped shoulder the burden, helped tear down the walls. She hated them for it, and cherished them.

She had lost the person she had been for so long, only to discover that losing yourself sometimes meant finding something  _more._


	10. Everything After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Set right after the events of Adamant.

It is done. Adamant. The rift is closed, the wardens saved. Still she feels broken.

Stroud is lost to the Fade and even though she hasn’t known the man long she mourns his loss alongside his fellow wardens and alongside Hawke. Evie knows that many of her companions disagree with her choice to bring the wardens into the inquisition. They are a liability at best, the inquisition’s downfall at worst. But they are needed; everyone is needed.

And she can’t do it alone. Oh, how she has prayed she could.

But here she is sitting in a tent on a battlefield littered with the bodies of those braver than her and she can’t even lift her arms to wash her hair. Can’t even bend over to put on clean clothes.

She is a sorry excuse for an inquisitor.

The water is growing cold and she stifles a cry when she tries again to raise her arms.

"Inquisitor."

Cassandra has ducked into the tent and the look on her face is unreadable. She had vehemently opposed Evie’s decision only hours earlier.

"Come to tell me what a terrible decision I’ve made, Seeker?" she asks, tone bitter and filled with tears.

The older woman steps forward, letting out a huff of exasperation. “No, I did not.” But she does not make any retractions of earlier statements either. “Are you alright?”

"Do I look alright?"

Cassandra comes closer and kneels. “You know that while I may not agree with you decisions, I respect them. You have proven over and over again that you are the leader we need.”

Hands rough from a life of hard work help her lean back and Cassandra makes a soothing noise when Evie cries out in pain. Her arm cradles the smaller woman close and gently pours the water over her head, alternating between pouring and making sure the water soaks through the knot that is her hair. She returns her to the upright position and begins to gently massage Evie’s scalp, fingers working through the tangles with a surprising gentleness.

"You are a strong woman, stronger than you give yourself credit for," Cassandra says as she works. "You have stood against the tide and you have prevailed over and over. That is something to be proud of. I am…proud to know you."


	11. What Family Is, And What It Isn't

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evie's brother comes to Skyhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evie was the youngest of her siblings and is the only mage in her immediate family. She was a child unplanned for and while her parents didn’t quite resent her they found precious little time for her. She was raised primarily by the nurse whom she called Nana. It was Nana who discovered she had magic when she was only six years old; she had turned around to find her charge with a small flame in her palm and a grin on her face. The revelation was a heartbreak for the old woman and a relief to her parents who thought it quite convenient that they could then ship her off to the Ostwick circle and not have to worry about her education or marrying her off once she was of age. She was gone within the week.
> 
> Evie’s older brother, well one of them anyway, is apparently a condescending dick. He’s two years older than her. His name is Iain. He’s recently married, and apparently is not the oldest because when Josephine invited the Trevelyan’s to Skyhold for a fete he was the one sent because their parents and older siblings were “regrettably” unable to make it.

"I hope one day you’re as happy as you’re pretending to be."

The comment has Evie skidding to a halt and she wheels on the speaker, faced with a person she doesn’t recognize but that she feels she should. There’s something so eerily familiar about them. And they speak as if they know her. They stare at her as if they know her.

The man is taller than her, but only by small measures and his face is not quite as condescending as his tone. He wears a noble’s finery and she vaguely toys around with the idea that this is one of the visiting patrons Josephine had told her to find some time to mingle with. But then that’s what tonight’s feast was about. Forget the fact that Corypheus was most certainly not feasting, at least not in the way they were about to, and that they could be doing anything else. But just as their ambassador left the details of the battles to Evie, so too did Evie leave the details of what they needed to do to bolster their reputation to their ambassador. And if Josephine said a feast was in order Evie wasn’t going to argue with her.

But that’s not what she was trying to figure out.

"Pardon me, who—-"

The man interrupts her. “I figured you wouldn’t recognize me. It would be a scandal if you didn’t, had you not turned out to be a mage.” She bristles at his tone. “We were separated when you were just seven after all. I was only nine.”

She studies him, taking in the green eyes, the tousled brown hair, the—-“Iain?”

"You do remember me after all!" He laughs.

He hugs her then and she stiffens in his arms before awkwardly patting his back. Brother he may be, but they were strangers to each other. Twenty years apart had seen to that.

"Your ambassador sent a missive to us in Ostwick, inviting us to this little… _shindig_. Mother and Father couldn’t make it but I told them I would represent our cause. The others send their love.”

She suppressed the eye roll and forced a smile on her face. “I’m glad you came. Is it just you?”

"I brought my wife too and a small attache. You understand. Can’t be too careful on the roads these days, and others in Ostwick wanted to see what you were up to. You’re the talk of the city, to be quite honest."

"And you think I’m pretending?"

He has the good grace to look taken aback. “Only that you’re pretending to be happy. Come sister, as distant as we may have been you didn’t smile once when I watched you greet the new arrivals or speak with some of your people. You were always smiling back home.”

His assumption that he knew her at all set her on edge but she didn’t say so, smiling instead as he so obviously wanted. “I am happy,” she assures him.

"You may have to lie to everyone else," he says, tucking her hand into the corner of his elbow and leading her off. "But you don’t have to lie to family."

She wants to tell him he isn’t family. ‘Look around,’ she wants to say. ‘These people are my family. The only ones who I’ve really known. The only ones who know me.’. There’s Cole, half-hidden from sight, sitting on the ramparts where he has an eagle-eye view of the entire keep. Scout Harding is standing outside of the tavern, speaking with Krem. The Iron Bull is—-“Maker’s breath, you have one of those Qunari-things here?”

It’s enough to jerk her hand from his arm. “His name is The Iron Bull, and he has saved my life more times than I can count on one hand!” she snaps.

Her brother just laughs, “Alright, alright! Calm down. I meant nothing by it. Honestly, this life does not suit you, sister.”

Her jaw clenches and she does the only thing she can in order to escape his presence. She just wants some time for herself before an evening of schmoozing with every noble rich enough to travel to Skyhold. “Forgive me, I’m just tired from my last journey. If you’ll excuse me I’ll freshen up and see you this evening. I’m sure I’ll be much more amenable then.”

It’s a lie. She wouldn’t be.

He touches her cheek, or tries to; she steps out of reach before he can. “Of course. I must make sure my people are settled anyway. See you tonight.”

'The inquisitor does not run,' she tells herself as she strides across the courtyard, up the stairs and into the keep as quickly as decorum allows. 'No, no, the inquisitor runs from no one. You have faced down a dragon and you can handle this.'


	12. Lost

It has swallowed her up before she even realizes it.

The confines of a prison, no matter the name or how lavish it was had never inspired feelings like this in her. In truth she hadn’t known it was possible to feel as she does. As if the sky had suddenly opened to her, showing her the miracles within its expansive being. Showing her endless possibilities. And that’s how it takes her by surprise.

It scares her. The depth of it, the way it’s hold on her is like a tangle of gnarled roots too entwined to be put to order. Those feelings are precursors to ruin. It would be foolish to think anything else. How many times has she seen such bright and fervent emotions lead to horror? Behind her eyes rest the memories of too many lives cut short either through death or the rite. Who is she to think she might walk this path and not succumb to the same fate?

It shakes her to her very core but it does not sway her for she is already lost.

Because eyes the color of honey grow infinitely warmer when they fall on her. Because hands so strong that they had stayed the advance of their enemies held her as if she were made of glass and left no mark at all. Because a mouth used to issuing orders could become so hesitant in her presence. He is her shelter, her comfort against a world torn to pieces.

All the while a storm rages outside.


	13. Wise Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Random appearance by my OC Madea. Words are exchanged between one troubled mage trying to make sense of the world and another.

Wise beyond her years. That’s how Evie would describe the young woman that had come to Skyhold in search of the warden-commander. 

With bright blue eyes and hair the color of the sky at dusk she wasn’t someone you wouldn't soon forget. She had introduced herself briefly and then gone off to find Cadhla leaving behind another warden to make excuses for her that were, in Evie’s opinion, unnecessary. 

"I am told that my greeting left something to be desired."

Evie opens her eyes and turns to look at the owner of the voice that had pulled her back from her thoughts. The young woman is standing formally, almost uncomfortably, with her hands clasped together in the small of her back. It’s a posture the inquisitor has grown used to—-it’s one the warden-commander falls back to frequently. 

"And who told you that?"

"Carver." The other warden she had arrived with had rolled his eyes at his companion’s behavior and sketched out a bow to Evie. 

"Ah, yes. Young Master Hawke."

Madea snorts and her face grows warmer and younger when she smiles. Evie doesn’t say so but the look is quite fond. “Call him that and I cannot promise your safety,” she teases. “He has made a struggle of trying to escape his sister’s shadow. I’m afraid it haunts his every turn,” she explains dryly.

"Good to know." 

"You’re not about to jump, are you?" Madea is watching her carefully and Evie realizes that she’s not tense because she’s uncomfortable. She’s tense because she’s about to leap into action should Evie attempt throw herself from the walls. Evie laughs and swings her feet from where they were dangling over the ledge. 

"No. I’m not suicidal."

"I don’t know about that," Madea retorts. "Anyone who has endeavored to go head to head with that monster cannot be completely sane."

"Ah but we weren’t talking about sanity, were we?"

The comment earns her a half of a smile, “I suppose not.” She fidgets and Evie recognizes the aborted motion, the habitual reach for a staff not at hand. “You’ve got quite the operation going here.”

"It’s…coming together."

Madea shakes her head. “You should take more credit for what you’ve accomplished. It is not something many could do.”

"It’s the mark, nothing more."

The other woman snorts and rolls her eyes. “A mark is not a living person, capable of inspiring hope. A mark does not face down a monster or rescue a scared, little girl from certain death.” Her blue eyes bore into Evie’s own and she knows that that admission is something not easily come by. “A mark is only that, a tool at best. It is who wields it that is the driving force.”

"If I didn’t have the mark I couldn’t be the person they need. It is the mark that closes the rifts."

"You use the mark to close the rifts. A lesser person could have run away or jumped off this wall to avoid the perils that await them. This mark may aid you, but it does not define you. It does not make you brave or selfless or strong. That is all on you, inquisitor." She leans over the ledge and surveys the ground below them. "I’ve been around enough of you types to have the perspective you can’t see for yourselves, so I know what I’m talking about."

Evie wonders what things she’s seen in the company of the Warden-Commander. Obviously she is dedicated to the woman. She wonders about her story, this young mage with so much wisdom for her years. She doesn’t ask though, no, she hasn’t earned that privilege yet. Maybe one day.

"I did not come up here to lecture you though." And for once she looks almost sheepish. "I came to apologize for my abrupt introduction."

Evie huffs out a laugh, “No apologies were needed, for the introduction or the lecture.”

Madea smiles and dips into a bow. “Your Worship.”

Before she disappears down the stairs she stops, turning on her heel. “One more thing?”

Evie’s hum is enough to encourage her to continue. 

"For all your deeds remember that you’re still human. You’re allowed your shortcomings and you’re allowed your mistakes." She smiles crookedly and takes a step down. "Oh, and you’re allowed to join your friends, and abrupt acquaintances, for drinks in the tavern. You know, when you have time."

She sketches out a salute and disappears down the stairwell as silently as she’d appeared.

Wise words indeed.


	14. Jealous Is As Jealous Does

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: "Wait a minute. Are you jealous?"

This was the Maker's way of punishing her for enjoying all of the letters Cullen had received about match making after the whole deal at Halamshiral. That's exactly what this was.

The fete Josephine had been planning had seemed like a fine idea in theory. Evie didn't enjoy rubbing elbows with visiting nobles but she did it regardless, and she did it with a smile on her face.

Until now.

The tittering women had arrived one after another over the past week and when Josie, standing at her elbow, had listed off their names Evie had recognized more than a few. Leliana had suppressed a snicker from her spot on Evie's other side.

"Wait, those names sound familiar. Have they been here before?"

"No, my lady. They have not."

There's something Josie isn't saying. Evie turns to her ambassador. "You're certain? I swear I've heard those names before. I---" She trails off as the several of the women flock towards Commander Cullen, who was at the gate overseeing the new arrivals. The former templar jumps as they crowd around him and she sees his face flush red at the sudden attention and---"Did you see that? Did she just---"

"Surely you know your Commander is loyal to you, and you alone," Leliana interrupts.

"I do. Of course I do," Evie replies, distractedly, eyes still focused on the crowd below. There's a unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Inquisitor?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you alright?"

Josie's hand drops down to cover hers and she realizes that she is gripping the railing so tightly her knuckles are white.

"Fine. I'm fine. Should we greet our guests? I should greet our guests. Let's go greet our guests," she says and starts down the steps before she gets an answer.

"Greet our guests?" Josie mouths at Leliana as they turn to follow causing the older woman to smother another laugh against her hand.

 

The crowds part before her, and she doesn't even bat an eye at it this time. Normally she flushes slightly, a slight haze of pink coloring her cheeks, even still. It's an endearing quality, Josie always says. But now she is of one mind and can't be bothered that these people have come from all corners of Thedas to bask in her presence.

The ladies are still fawning over Cullen. Well, not just  _her_ presence.

"Lady Inquisitor!"

"Maker bless you, my lady!"

"Thank you for having us to Skyhold. It is marvelous!"

She returns every greeting with a cordial smile, practiced over cups of tea and mulled wine in Josie's office late at night. She shakes hands and kisses two babies until she's at last arrived at the small crowd that has now gathered around the commander of the inquisition's forces.

"Excuse me, but I need to borrow my commander," Evie says to the women and tucks her hand in the crook of Cullen's arm. The man in question looks down at her but she refuses to meet his eye, a trait uncommon to her for as long as he's known her. "Inquisition business I'm afraid. We'll see you ladies at the feast this evening."

"To the war room?" Cullen asks when they're clear of the crowd. He frowns when she shakes her head and pulls loose from him, stalking towards her quarters and not waiting for him to follow.

He follows her anyway.

"Have I done something to offend you?" he asks when they're alone in her quarters and she won't look at him.

"No!" she snaps, but she still won't face him.

"Obviously I've done something. You won't even look at me."

"It's nothing," Evie says, her tone softening if only by small degrees. "You've done nothing."

He watches her as she paces the length of the room once and then again. When she turns a third time he steps forward and catches her arm, gently tugging her to him. "I would have you tell me what's wrong," he says. "If I've done--"

"It's not you, Cullen. It's me!" He takes a long breath, the air shuddering in and out as they both stand silently, his eyes intent on her face, her gaze fixed to the floor. "I am weak and even though I know I shouldn't feel the way I feel I can't help it. It gnaws at me, claws at my chest in a fight to get out. It's a miracle I've bested it for so long..."

"If you are unhappy in this relationship. If you wish to part---"

She looks up sharply, hazel eyes suddenly all they can do to be fixed on him. "What? No! I don't wish to part with you, and I'm not unhappy."

"But you said..."

A fine blush stains her cheeks and she bites her lip as realization dawns on him. Relief escapes him in a chuckle and earns him a glare. "Wait a minute. Are you, the famed Herald of Andraste, our beautiful, irreplaceable Inquisitor, jealous?"

"It's unbecoming, I know," she sighs, the fight leaving her now that she's been found out. "But the way they fawn over you...so beautiful in they're colored dresses and perfect, stupid hair."

"Good thing I prefer my women in armor and with hair tousled from riding at full speed back to the keep so I can hold them in my arms again."

She shoves him half-heartedly and he stoops down to brush his lips over hers. "You big sap," she says fondly when he pulls back.

"Only for you, my lady. Only ever for you."


	15. What Friends are For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric hates the deep roads. He really, really hates them. Someone notices.

Varric hears the rumors long before they’re even whispers. He feels the tremors of unease running through the ranks as each missive arrives from the far reaches of the realm. And it shakes the foundations of Skyhold as surely as the tremors were shaking Thedas. And he knows what’s coming. He knows and he hates it. 

So he listens, and he waits.

He watches the inquistior as she’s ushered past, flanked by Leliana and Josephine. Cullen strides through not long after. Then Cassandra. Then Morrigan. 

 _Shit,_ he thinks.  _It must be bad._

They don’t reappear for hours. The sky has long since faded to black and the hall has emptied. There’s a sound at his feet and a heavy nose nudges his foot. Shadow peers up at him, Varric hadn’t even seen him appear. 

“Snuck out, eh? Probably a smart move, they’ve been in there a long time.”

Shadow whines and lays his head on top of his crossed paws.

Still it’s hours longer before the door creaks open. Morrigan emerges first looking just as she had earlier. Cassandra follows, imitating the commander as she rubs at the back of her neck, the circles beneath her eyes evident even at this distance. 

“Don’t stay up too late, Josie.” That’s the inquisitor. She’s pausing in the doorway, waiting for some acknowledgment and she must get it because her tired face lights into a smile and she nods, responding to something said from within. “I will.”

Leliana matches pace with the inquisitor and they bow their heads. As rocky a start as those two may have had there’s no denying the bond between them now. Leliana pats the younger woman’s shoulder and takes her leave.

 _This is it._  Varric thinks to himself when Evie’s eyes meet his from across the hall.  _Shit, I hate the deep roads. I really hate the deep roads._  He knows she’s about to ask; they always do. He’s a dwarf, he must know the tunnels. Must have some stone sense. 

She looks more exhausted than he’s ever seen her, and that’s saying a lot. Her hand rises, fingers rake through her hair, and she opens her mouth to say something—-

“Ev?” 

Cullen saves him in that instant, though Varric is certain he’s on borrowed time. Evie turns and looks up at the commander. Something unspoken passes between the two and she hugs him tightly for a moment before stepping back. “I’ll be right behind you,” she says. 

Cullen disappears through her door and she turns back towards where he sits, waiting. “Shadow,” she calls, patting her leg and whistling softly. It’s all it takes and the mabari is bounding across the hall to to where she’s knelt down to greet him. When she stands she smiles and raises her hand in a small wave, “G’night, Varric.”

“Good night, Evie.”

 

 

He expects that it will happen the next day, but it never comes. He sees her several times but the summons he expects never comes. The anticipations sets him on edge, makes his game of wicked grace with Bull and the Chargers less enjoyable. He hates waiting for the inevitable. 

And that’s what he does for most of the next few days as the inquisitor busies herself with preparations for leaving. He alternates between watching and making himself scarce. Between hoping she just gets it over with and hoping he can’t be found and she just gives up. 

But if he knows anything about their inquisitor it’s that she doesn’t give up.

In the end she takes him by surprise. It’s the night before she’s due to leave and he swears he had seen her retire when a voice startles him from his thoughts.

“Varric?”

He jumps three feet and clutches his chest. “Maker’s breath!” he exclaims. “You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even hear you come in.” 

She gives him a lop-sided smile that’s half apology and half amusement. “May I sit?” 

He motions to the empty chair next to him and she takes it. 

_This is it. I hate the deep roads. I hate them more than Broody hates mages._

“I’m leaving tomorrow and I was hoping—” “I really hate the deep roads, Evie.”

They both stop and he’s surprised when Evie laughs lightly and pats his hand. “You don’t have to tell me that, Varric. I know.”

“I know we all have to do things we hate—”

“Varric,” Evie interrupts, gently. “I wasn’t going to force you to come. On the contrary, I was hoping you’d look after Cullen for me while I’m gone. Just between the two of us, of course. He won’t admit it but he’s fretting about my leaving. Doesn’t like the thought of me going down into the bowels of the earth.”

“Neither do I,” Varric adds. 

“And that makes three, including myself.” She smiles. “But I do have to go, and I think we all know that.”

She laughs when he makes a face. “If I promise to come home safely will that pacify you?”

They both know she can’t make that promise. Especially not going down into the deep roads. He doesn’t need to remind her though. “Maybe long enough for me to let you leave.”

She pats his hand. “You’ll watch out for him for me? He’ll need a friend or he’ll fret himself into another migraine.”

“I’ll see to Curly, don’t worry about that.”

“Thank you, Varric.” She stands. “I leave first thing in the morning so I best be off to bed. Dawn comes too soon.”

“Thanks for not asking me to come,” he says.

“You don’t have to thank me, I wouldn’t have made you go back there. Not after everything that happened.”

She gets halfway across the hall before he catches up to her, before his wits catch up to him. “Wait! How did you know what happened?” 

“The Tale of the Champion, Varric. You didn’t think I’d skip reading that one did you?”

He shakes his head, “I didn’t come out and say I hated them.” And he hadn’t. Not directly. Maybe his words were a little more disparaging. Maybe he made their ascent seem too eager, but it had been. Eager to leave the roads behind them, eager to leave the events behind them. 

She smiles and pats his shoulder gently. “That’s the thing about friends, Varric. Sometimes you don’t have to.”


	16. Even If

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Trespasser - Cassandra “abducts” a willing Evie. This is just a character moment. No plot, no nothing. Just two old friends. Potentially a small spoiler so if you haven't played don't read.

It feels good to be on the road again, though Evie would never have believed that if someone had said she would feel that way years ago. The two women rode together, sometimes in companionable silence, sometimes talking, but always content. The warrior adapted easily to the younger woman’s new fighting style when they came across bandits on the road, taking the one handed, sometimes slightly frantic, casting in stride. It was mostly muscle memory, a habit that couldn’t really be forgotten, even if they were fewer in number now. But the roads were by in large safer and they ran into few problems.

“Does it trouble you?” Cassandra asks one evening when they’ve made camp and the fire is crackling merrily. Shadow is sleeping nearby.

Evie looks up from where she’s fixing a cup of tea for each of them. “What?” She blinks and then grins. “Oh you mean this?” She waves the offending limb.

“Naturally,” the former seeker replies dryly.

“You know you asked me that once before,” Evie continues, a smile still on her face as she goes back to her cups. “After I had tried to close the breach the first time, back in Haven.”

“I remember,” Cassandra replies, but her voice is fond. That seemed like a lifetime ago, a moment shared between strangers instead of the friends they have since become. A query after a mark whose existence held a future neither could even fathom. They both lapse into silence as Evie pours water into the cups.

“It’s better than the alternative,” Evie finally says. “And I’m…adjusting.”

“I did not wish this on you. This sacrifice.”

Evie hands the other woman a cup and then sits back with a thump, “Cassandra, this is hardly your fault. And I am grateful for what I’ve been given in return. Dear friends, a husband, and we did save the world, even if…”

“Even if we will be tasked with doing it again?”

Evie looks up and smiles, heartbreak written all over her face because somethings weren’t a blessing.

“Even if.”


	17. Fight or Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: If your character was suddenly challenged, would they rather run away or stay and fight?

Haven is never quiet.

It grows still, in the dark hours of the night when only the guardsmen make their rounds in slow circuits, but it never goes silent. There is always something. The wind through the mountains, sometimes as quiet as a whisper, other times as loud as a hammer on stone. There are horses whinnying, the bark of a dog, the plaintive shout of someone waking from a nightmare. The cold doesn’t dampen it, doesn’t muffle the noise.

Evie misses the quiet. In the Circle there was always somewhere she could escape to, a refuge of quiet solitude where her thoughts were her own and there were no distractions. It was there where she could escape the cruel taunts of her fellow mages. There she could try to outrun the barbs that stuck in her as if they were living thorns. It was there she could run to so she could attempt to make sense of a world she was no longer allowed to partake in.

It had been a world she had known once, in those brief years when she had been left to the charge of nursemaids and servants, before her magic had manifested. Before she had become a secret to keep locked away. Even after she had been sent to the tower she would sometimes sit in the window watching the world sprawl out before her eyes. With every passing year the memories of it grew fuzzier and became harder to recall, as if they were simply faded words on a page left to time’s devices. It had become a time and place untouchable, something she never expected to be immersed in again.

But her quiet world had dissolved with a distant vote she had no say in and everything she had forgotten rose and swallowed her whole.

There is no quiet in the days and weeks that follow, there is no escaping the noise.

Not even here in Haven.

“I suggest running as soon as you get the chance.” Varric’s word had stayed with her. “I know heroes, but this? This is going to take a miracle.”

Evie had stared at the dwarf. “I’m no miracle worker, Varric,” she had replied hoping beyond hope he saw some other way. Something that didn’t require the Maker or Andraste or a being that had infinitely more power than she did. Something that meant she didn’t have to run. She was so tired of running.

But he had only smiled sadly.  _He knows I’m not_ , she told herself.

The mark crackles softly and she feels the pull of magic racing through her nerves. She feels it tighten around the ligaments pulling her fingers together in a fist. She feels it shoot down her spine, clench around her bones. It doesn’t hurt anymore, but it is like no magic she has ever known. It is wild. It is fierce. It feels as if it is its own living thing, separate from her but entwined with her so intimately they might never be separated. It consumes her and she can’t remember what it was like before. What she was like before.

In theory it would be so easy to run. After that first attempt had stabilized the breach, had given them room to breathe, they had relaxed their guard around her. She was free to roam Haven and the surrounding camps at will, not subject to the scrutiny of every guard. Under the guise of some errand—gathering elfroot or something else mundane—she could slip away and leave this place behind her.

“And where would I go?” she asks herself, voice a cracked whisper.

The truth was she could run but she wouldn’t get far. All of the books in those gilded halls had never prepared her for the dangers and complexities of a life out here. Death would find her just as quickly as if she faced the breach again this moment, perhaps more quickly. There was no quiet nook or silent stairwell where she might find reprieve. No moment of stillness where she might regain some semblance of calm. Everywhere she turned the world was in turmoil and it roared in shock and outrage. People were scared and furious and oblivious. There was danger out here and strangers hiding behind guises she didn’t know how to understand. To Evie the world beyond this camp, alone and unknowing, was a death sentence just as surely as this promised to be.

“I can’t go back, and there is no other way forward.”

There was no choice. There had never been one.

No, there was no escaping this. She could run but she couldn’t. 

Not really.


	18. You Are You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: things you said after it was over
> 
> TRESPASSER SPOILERS. Evie and Cole share a moment, post-Trespasser.

It's like they don't know how to be around her now. Like they think this may have broken her beyond repair...and to be truthful sometimes she wasn't quite sure how to be around herself either. But she was certain that she didn’t want to be alone or to have people walk on egg shells around her. It was an adjustment, she knew that, and it would take time for her and everyone to come to terms with everything that had happened; not just with her being short half an arm, but with the revelation about Solas, with the disbanding of their family. It would all take time.

At least she has Cole, though with as unsettled as her mind has been, he has had a lot to sort through. Still, he always seemed to be where she needed him, never forcing his company upon her but being a solid presence when she was in need of one.

The sun is at its highest and she's still in her quarters. The bed is made---it had taken her longer than normal but she had done it herself---and now she's sitting at the foot of it carefully unwrapping the bandages from the end of her severed arm. The healers had done a wonderful job and the physical wounds were quickly healing. The scar was mostly pink and puckered by now, very little was raw anymore. Multiple times a day she carefully rubs an herbal liniment into it to help with the healing and any lingering pain.

"You left this in the war room."

She starts at Cole's voice but smiles when her heart starts beating again. He's holding out the little tin of liniment and she accepts it from him. She had stayed late the night before looking at troop movements and trying to sort out the best way to wrap up their efforts in the field. They had promised to call back all of their soldiers and disband by the end of summer and that would come all too soon.

"Thank you, dear heart," she says and pops off the lid.

"Can I help?"

She had been hesitant to let anyone touch the limb, even Cullen, though she had eventually relented in that regard. She pauses now but she knows Cole has no other agendas, no other reason for asking. 

She inclines her head. "If you'd like."

His smile tells her that's the answer he had wanted and she offers him the tin back. Two fingers dip into it and began working the paste into the scars just as she did. He traces the scar's length and he's not hesitant as the healers often are or as Cullen had been. When he begins to hum she feels some of the tension bleed out of her. Cole was a balm as much as the liniment was.

"Cole?"

He peers at her from beneath the brim of his hat, face serene. "Yes?"

"A long time ago I asked what you saw when you looked at me and you said the anchor made me too bright---"

"Like birds against the sun; yes, I remember."

She smiles and tweaks the brim of his hat with her good hand. "Is it different now? With the anchor gone?"

"You are still bright, but it's easier to see you now. The anchor didn't make you you, it only blinded those who tried to see. Where there were two hands before now there is only one but it reaches just the same, fingers spread, arm outstretched. Helping, hoping, reaching. You love those close to you and they love you in return. The anchor being gone may have taken with it your ability to heal the veil but it does not change who you are. He could not change that."

Evie sucks in a breath. Of course Cole would know.

"That is what worried you most?"

She nods. "I hadn’t---couldn’t---." 

Since they had known her she had always possessed the anchor and now it was gone. What if it had changed her? What if now that it was gone she wasn’t the person they knew? It had scared her too much to say aloud.

"I know." His fingers are still rubbing the liniment into a particularly sore spot but he is gentle, slowly kneading and not seeming fazed by the rending scar.

"He always seemed so interested in whether the anchor had changed me. If it had some effect on me. I didn't think it did, I told him no, but after all that's happened I worry. Maybe I just can't see it, maybe it did. Maybe  _he_ did."

Cole shakes his head. "No. Quiet and strong, with purpose, both giving and given." His hand finds hers and squeezes her fingers gently. “You are you.”

“I am still me,” Evie whispers and squeezes Cole’s hand in return.

He smiles. “You are still you.”


End file.
